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[Chromie]

I see a lot of castles, as far as aboveground constructions go, but I'm working on one I've never seen before. I'm looking forward to my scimitar-wielding turban-wearing Us to greet their trade liason in an epic caravanserai. (I don't see much "trader housing"/"inn" stuff at all, actually -- I know it's just playing pretend at the moment, not used, but ... so is every feature that doesn't calculate into dwarf happiness)

This one's so square it looks like it's already rendered in 3dwarf...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://photo-vision.blogspot.com/2007/05/caravanserai-of-deh-namak.html

(also look up "Kandovan cave homes" for some rather dwarfy looking dwellings)

Anyway, features:
-squarish
-one to three floors usually
-trade depot and shops, and animal pens on the ground floor
-housing for traders on the upper floors
-some kind of plant or water feature and a meeting area in the middle.
    (If you construct a roof over grass on a hot biome, it will stay green while the rest of the map is yellow "dry grass")


What other constructions have you noticed missing?

[Deadmeat1471]

Hmm interesting, my next game im making proper above ground cabins, 2 dwarfs each XD but this idea looks good - ill keep watch on this!!

[Dwarfu]

That was pretty neat, and I think it would convert to dwarf-fashion easily.

Do post pics when you accomplish this.

I tend to have my trade area look something similar, with the tent for the trade depot in the center, the shops' tents (once the economy kicks in) around the outside, a nearby guard post, nearby well, and nearby waiting area.  Sometimes I chain up the work-type animals (horses, camels, muskox, etc) in an open corral.

[Duke 2.0]

...

 This looks like it belongs in the bedroom designs thread.

 I like it. I might even make a tower with this format. The center will always be open to the sky.

[Chromie]

The problem with a caravanserai-tower, is that there shouldn't be a 'hallway' indoors. Gotta go around the outside or through the middle.

[G-Flex]

You could make a balcony on each level around the inner ring (where the entrances to the rooms adjacent to the central part are), with staircases. That way, everything is still connected via the central area.

This balcony could be extended to the main entrance as well, to provide multi-level access to the outer ring, since that entrance is covered to begin with.

[Heron TSG]

all you need is a walkway along the inside rim of the hole.

[G-Flex]

Which is basically what I just said.

[CloisteredSyrups]

Hmm...

If you doubled the size, and changed around which halls/rooms connect to what...

This could make for an interesting tower-fortress in and of itself.

Add adjacent water tower, heavily fortify the entrances, and add some bridges/walkways in the middle as you go up in tiers.

Dwarves would never get cave adapted due to crossing through the sunlit middle.

You could have workshops on one end of the tower (at the top or bottom), rooms on the other, goodies inbetween... I like it Needs an initial starter fort to build though I guess, what with all the material and labor needed...

... would need Dorf Guard Rails though...

[Aspgren]

Dorf Guard Rails?

What, 2 feet tall? 

[Tradanbattlan]

And as stable as a sober statue

[Alex Encandar]

One thing that I've noticed is that arches are difficult to accomplish in DF. Usually they just come off either looking square are like a pyramid. This limits their use in architecture quite a bit.

I like the above design though, might use it for housing. In my sig there is a link to a fortress I used a similar design in.

[Yolan]

Well, two ideas I had.


One, a fortress built into an isolated mesa. By that I mean, a hill with a flat top.

Specifically, I thought it would be cool to find or make such a large hill, with forest on top, and remove the upward slopes all around it. In other words, remove any way for people to get to all the nice woodland area on top... except via your fortress. The point would be to have a safe area for above ground farming/ tree chopping. Combine with an underground river source of such, and some good vantage points over surrounding flat ground for archers, and you have a pretty nice seige base for when seiges roll around.


Two.. hmm, this one might have been done, but... I was experimenting with this the other day, and didn't fully finish the job. My idea was that you make a fake lake next to a river, without filling it up yet. Then dig your base entrance down from the lake bed, with plenty of room for trade caravans to get in. Set up 1) some water tight gates at your base entrance/trading room, maybe a few more than one, 2) a v. large underground empty water holding tank of multiple z-levels, 3) shafts running from the base of the lake to the holding tanks, with water gates, 4) shafts connecting the lake with the adjacent river, with water gates, 5) a central control room with levers for all the gates.

OK. So, the idea here is that, for coolness factor more than anything, your only base entrance is completely hidden underneath what appears to be a normal sized lake/pond by a river. With a few switches, water sucks down suddenly, and your base entrance appears like the evil lair of a James Bond villan. Classy.  You could even use it to drown raiders if you times it right, combined it with some extra purpose built drowny rooms. Also, the holding tanks could then be used for farming/drinking/waterfalls/etc.

[Mount]

One, a fortress built into an isolated mesa. By that I mean, a hill with a flat top.

I have since deleted the save file, but one of my early fortresses had a large cliff face on the west edge, and a sizable, isolated mesa closer to the center of the map.  The mesa was the starting point of my fortress, though parts of it extended underground into the cliff face.  The inital entrance was on top of the mesa, with an "airlocked" trade depot craved into the side. (Outer and inner wall grates operated by levers inside the fortress:  one was locked as long as the other was open.)   There was an underground river (and no reliable overground water) so I had a long constructed aqueduct 3z-levels above "ground", which was eventually intended to be pumped into a cistern-tower above the fortress for a central waterfall/deep well setup. 

This was all screwed by a single kobold thief who picked his way into the aqueduct via maintenance doors, got blocked in the aqueduct when the escaping water froze behind him, and picked the access hatches into my main fortress while the aqueduct was filling in an attempt to drown him.  Instead it drowned the entire bottom z-level of the fortress. 

I'd like to try something like that again someday, it had real potential!

[Name Lips]

Ah, cliffs. I liked cliffs. I hope we get them back again. All this "ramp" business makes me sad.